How to Respond when Your Child Makes a Mistake

How you respond to the mistakes kids make is just as important as correcting it in the first place. Learn how to respond when kids make mistakes.

I kept telling my boys to knock it off. We were eating dinner and, as usual, the three of them acted goofy with one another. On this particular night, they were moving their arms left and right in a marching swing. And as I predicted, one of them knocked over a cup of water.

How to respond when kids make mistakes

Maybe your child has also spilled a cup of water, or told a lie and tried to cover it up, or even hit his brother over the head. The way we react is just as important as correcting our children’s mistakes.

Consider whether the mistake was an accident

Was your child’s mistake an accident? How often do you get frustrated when your kids mess up their nice shirts with jelly? Or drop their plate of dinner all over the kitchen floor? If you’re like me, you’ve lost your temper at some point.

Before you discipline your kids, ask yourself whether the mistake was an accident. Usually the answer is yes. Rarely do kids make mistakes or mishaps on purpose to be naughty. Even a young child emptying a cereal box may not have known she wasn’t allowed to. And as frustrating as it is to clean spilled water, my son didn’t do it on purpose.

Reminding yourself that the mistake was an accident helps put it in perspective. Everyone makes mistakes, including us. How often have we gotten frustrated at our kids for spilling a cup of water, only to do the same thing yourself?

Thank your child

When your child admits making a mistake, thank him for telling you. Yup, before you scold or discipline, thank your child for letting you know what happened. Maybe he was rough housing with his brother and ended up pushing him too hard. Before telling him to be more careful, thank him for telling you the truth.

My three-year-old ran to me in tears, and I asked my six-year-old, “What happened?” He bowed his head low and whispered, “I hit him.” Before telling him not to do that, I reassured him, “Thanks for telling me the truth.”

He’ll feel like he can tell you anything, even when he’s in trouble or needs help. He should be able to tell you both good and bad parts of his day, including when he’s guilty of making a mistake. He needs to know it’s more important to be honest with his parents than hide things and get into more trouble.

Thank your kids when they…

tell you about the mistake

admit their part in it

help clean up or resolve the mistake

apologize

Embrace mistakes as learning moments

Mistakes are awesome teachers. When your kids make mistakes, don’t make them feel ashamed for doing so. Common mistakes are healthy and helpful—they help kids learn what to do and not do in the future. Mistakes are an inevitable part of life that we might as well make the most of.

Rather than reprimand your kids, focus on helping them sort through their emotions. Allow them to make mistakes. They’ll know you have faith in their ability to do so and aren’t always trying to protect them.

Making mistakes helps kids develop the coping mechanisms for controlling frustration and guilt. They develop the thinking skills to decide how to make the situation better. And when we don’t let them make mistakes or reprimand them for doing so, they miss out on this opportunity.

Rather than reprimand your kids, focus on helping them sort through their emotions.

Prevent common mistakes

Though mistakes are inevitable, help prevent the mistakes your child makes. Child-proof your home, or set valuables out of reach. Pull the kids apart when they’re starting to play too rough. Guide your child towards more appropriate activities.

I could’ve moved the cups of water away from the dining table when my kids were goofing around. Or I could’ve been more stern when I said for them to stop. Kids can make mistakes because we didn’t take the precautions to avoid them in the first place.

Conclusion

Mistakes are inevitable. How we react is just as important as addressing the mistake in the first place.

See if the mistake was an accident or not. Often the impulse wasn’t to be mischievous but a simple accident. You make mistakes as well, and that no one is perfect.

Thank your kids for telling you their mistakes. Praise them for helping to resolve the mistake and even apologizing for the role they played in it.

Mistakes can be positive when we use them as learning moments.

And finally, prevent common mistakes. Sometimes we play a role in the mistakes they make.

Build open communication based on honesty, learning from the moment and unconditional love. Even over a spilled cup of water on the dining table.

Tell me in the comments: What are your tips on how to respond when kids make mistakes?

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Comments

We usually say, “No biggie!” when a drink spills or some other accident happens. Then we hand our kiddos a towel and ask them to help clean it up. I sure wouldn’t want someone getting mad at me every time I make a mistake so we try to teach our kiddos that mistakes happen, but we need to be responsible to help rectify our mistakes.

This is really a good reminder. I used to be so impatient even when it was just a simple mistake like spilling food or water. I’m happy though that I’ve long changed that. I’ve read about it a lot too and I realized that kids really do not intend to do these things. My son has actually learned how to clean up his mess when he spills food on the table or floor.

Yup, I’ve also gotten a lot better about realizing that these mistakes are harmless. And honestly, even the defiant behavior is all normal as well to a certain degree. It’s easier to address mistakes knowing they’re normal.

It’s good to be reminded that we adults make mistakes and not to be so hard on kids who do actually need reminding. Their minds aren’t fully developed so how can we actually expect them “to know better”. Another good way to practice taking a breath before reacting!

Yup, anything to get us to pause before reacting is great. Helps us realize that mistakes are normal and the way we react can either make them fear or feel ashamed of mistakes or realize that they’re great to learn from.

This goes hand in hand so nicely with your post about asking them “why.”
I make mistakes probably every day and my children are very young and have a lot to learn. Heck, so do I!
I usually take a deep breath and count to five first.

Excellent tips. My favorite response to mistakes comes from a music teacher my violist sister worked with. Whenever one of his students made a mistake, he would say, “How fascinating!” and they would take it from there.

I don’t get mad when my kids spill things, but I do get loud. They just stand there and stare at milk dripping off the table! And at (almost) 8 and 11 they are old enough to know what to do! Their reaction times are no good at all! LOL

What is up with the staring at the spill? My kids do the same, and I do wonder why they just watch it drip. I hadn’t thought of this, but yeah—why don’t they react the same way we do (e.g. get up and wipe it fast!)?

All great ideas! I tried to not make a big deal when my kids spilled stuff (I had four) because I didn’t want them to feel bad for being human! I know I’ve had my share of spills as well. And you are right, thanking them for owning up to whatever they have done is a great first reaction – because they will obviously lean towards not telling you if they know they’re going to get a very negative reaction. This can be carried on throughout the teen years as well. We have to stop, take a breath, and listen. Listen first, always, or we’ll drive them away. Thanks for sharing on Tuesday Talk!

These are such great pieces of advice! It’s always good to get a reminder.

The best piece of advice I got was ‘take a breath before you do anything’ and it really helps me to center. I don’t think about cleaning up the mess, or fixing whatever happened, but that breath and that moment allows me to be able to focus on the teaching aspect.

Oh man, my kids are always making mistakes. It’s so easy to get upset – especially about the careless mistakes where you’re thinking that the kid should have known better. But it’s not easy being a kid. Everything’s so much bigger to them than to us. Definitely agree with what you said about thanking children for admitting to a mistake. There are so many people out there that just can’t admit they did something wrong, and that’s an important part of getting along with others as you grow older!

I think that’s what it is: you think they should know better. And sometimes they should and maybe that’s why we get crazy. But yeah, it’s usually not intentional, and certainly normal to make those mistakes.

Great idea to thank you children when they have to courage to admit to a mistake. That is so important, and makes them more willing to communicate in the future. Nobody likes making mistakes.. it feels yucky. But a calm response can only help:)

Exactly Seana. I want them to feel like they can come to me, even when they make mistakes. I’d rather remain calm and deal with the situation than make them feel like they’d rather avoid telling me because they’ll get in big trouble.

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